She warned council that if they didn’t re-open and repeal their plastic bag ban there was a “significant” likelihood they could face a lawsuit.

In her Sept. 17 confidential legal opinion to councillors, obtained exclusively by the Toronto Sun, city solicitor Anna Kinastowski advises council that if the city is sued, an Ontario court could very well determine that the plastic bag ban was “adopted in bad faith” and move to “quash” it.

Kinastowski’s rationale is that councillors initiated the ban on the fly back in June without any notice prior to introducing it at council, without any public consultation and without the benefit of a staff report.

In fact, while she acknowledges council’s broad authority under the City of Toronto Act to adopt such a ban, she says Ontario courts have repeatedly found that municipal councils exercise “bad faith” whenever they “act arbitrarily” and without the fairness, openness and “impartiality required of a municipal government.”

Kinastowski insists that council has left itself open to a legal challenge for adopting the plastic bag ban without first asking for a staff analysis of how the ban would better realize the city’s waste diversion goals than keeping the six-cents fee (including HST) and how such a ban would impact on the businesses that rely on plastic bags and the industry that manufactures them.

She also points out, quite rightly, that council helped dig its own grave (my words, not hers) by voting to ban plastic bags as of next Jan. 1 while rescinding the six-cents fee this past July 1 — leaving a six-month gap where there would be no ban or fee in effect. She adds that council didn’t direct staff to undertake consultation or report on the implementation during the six-month period.

Kinastowski urges council to repeal the current ban until city staff can report on the pros and cons, financial implications and timing of a possible ban — and to allow for proper public consultation. She says these steps will “significantly reduce the legal risk of the plastic bag ban being quashed” and a court challenge.

Certainly two groups — the Ontario Convenience Stores Association and the Canadian Plastics Industry Association — have already threatened to take the city to court.

But neither Kinastowski’s opinion nor the threat of a costly lawsuit swayed a majority of councillors Thursday.

Led by David Shiner — the attention-starved author of the original plastic bag ban — 22 other nut jobs approved a motion to have the city solicitor draft a bylaw in time for the November public works committee meeting.

They also ordered staff to hold consultations at that same meeting, even though Kinastowski’s legal opinion makes it quite clear this approach will not remove enough of the “legal risk.”

As should be obvious to most, but evidently not to the nutters who voted to proceed, she says such a consultation would give the appearance of “being tailored to support” the June decision.

Well it wouldn’t be the first time council ignored Kinastowski’s sound advice and found themselves in court over their stupid/stubborn/impetuous behaviour.

Still it makes me wonder if this is about a pack of councillors hellbent on ramming their Social Engineering agenda down Torontonians’ throats at all costs — or about a bunch of childish crybabies who stamped their feet and made sure they won something at this council meeting.

Whatever the reason and whether one is in a favour of an all-out ban or not (I’m against one), they all deserve to be sued. Too bad they can’t be held personally responsible for the costs of the legal action. Sadly, if it involved their pocketbooks, the leftist eco-snobs would think twice.

Budget chief Mike Del Grande said it’s “par for the course” that a certain segment of council would flout the law.

“I just scratch my head,” he said.

Deputy mayor Doug Holyday says the councillors who voted to keep the ban just don’t care about people’s rights or trampling on them — thinking “they know best.”

He said not taking the city solicitor’s excellent advice will leave the city extremely vulnerable to legal action.

“The educated guess we’ve been given is we’re on thin ice,” he said. “the last thing we need is another costly lawsuit one we have no chance of winning.”

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Who voted to push the plastic bag ban on to the public works committee in November: